


The Things We Do When No One's Watching

by cecilia095



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5445542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilia095/pseuds/cecilia095
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rule #1: If there's any sexual tension whatsoever in the room, you call Winston in. Seriously. He just... sucks it all out and then bam! It's gone. You're fine. Everything's cool. Rule #2: When Winston isn't around, you're kind of screwed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Do When No One's Watching

**Author's Note:**

> So basically, if I had my way, this is what season five would look like for Nick and Jess. Sadly, I don't, because I'm not by any means a writer for New Girl, or a writer in general, really, but if I WERE, season five would go a little something like this...

TWO DAYS AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT

The rules go like this:

Rule #1: If there's any sexual tension whatsoever in the room, you call Winston in. Seriously. He just... sucks it all out and then bam! It's gone. You're fine. Everything's cool. Rule #2: When Winston isn't around, you're kind of screwed.  
  
"So..." Jess is surrounded by cutouts from more wedding magazines than she knows how to count, and Nick is doing that annoying thing where he taps a pen on the table and just _looks_ at her with this _look_ because he doesn't know what to say.

Two days ago, Jess' best friend in the entire world got engaged to Nick's best friend in the entire world, and like, they're both really happy for the two of them, they are, but - Okay, there's part of Jess that's like,  _If they can, why can't I, why haven't I, what's wrong with me_? and sometimes, she thinks Nick feels that too, even though he'll probably never say anything about it.  
  
"These center pieces are nice," Jess says, shoving one of the magazines across the dining room table at him, and Nick's all, "Yeah."  
  
"What about these?" And then she shoves another magazine at him, and God, Miller, could you at least  _pretend_ to be interested? "Nick?"  
  
He clears his throat. "What? Sorry. Yeah, they're nice, Jess. I guess. Why do you care so much? It's not like you're the one getting married."  
  
_Thanks for reminding me_ , she wants to say, with a bitter laugh and everything, but she just half-smiles at him and says, "I like planning things."

"You are  _quite_ the planner, my friend," Nick says.

 _My friend_. Jess lets her head spin for a second.  _My friend_. She thinks of the mug - no, you don't get it, like,  _the mug_ , the sex mug, the mug she stupidly got out of bed to check the garbage for at 2:05 AM because part of her (- okay, all of her)  _wanted_ it to be gone.

"I take my job seriously."

"It's not like they're  _paying you_."

"Schmidt said I could wear a headset at the rehearsal dinner, so, it's kind of a big deal, thank-you-very-much."

"A headset?! I want that."

"Then take your job seriously, Nick!"

—

TWO WEEKS AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT

"And you're  _sure_ planning this whole thing with  _Nick_ isn't like... weird?" Cece's playing with the shiner on her left hand, ring finger, and it's  _all_ she touches when she talks, and Jess wants to be like, "Doesn't that get old, Ceec?" but then she thinks if someone gave her a ring like  _that_ , she'd be enamored by it, too.

"Why do you say it like that?: ' _Nick_ '?"

"How am I supposed to say it?" Cece asks defensively, narrowing her eyes at her best friend.

"I don't know, like a normal person? Nick. Nick, Nick, Nick."

Cece rolls her eyes. "I don't know, it's just, Nick told Winston who told Schmidt who told me that it's kind of weird planning an engagement party with his ex-girlfriend."

"H-He said that?"

"Oh, God, please don't go and tell him you know. It's not a big deal."

"It is  _too_ a big deal!" Jess exclaims, hands on her hips and all. "I gave him an official Best Man clipboard and everything."

"A  _what_?"

She just waves Cece off. "This is about the mug. I know it's about the mug."

"A mug? Jess, what are you even  _saying_ right now?"

"A sex mug, it's this thing Nick and I used to use for sex, just - You wouldn't know about it because you were too busy climbing a mountain."

Cece just widens her eyes.

"You know what?" Jess says, and Cece just shrugs. "It is weird. It's  _super_ weird."

"Elaborate."

"We threw out the mug. We said, 'Clean Break', we high-fived to it, and then we threw out the mug. But later that night, I got out of bed and checked the garbage for the mug; the same mug we said 'Clean Break' to. And it wasn't there. I don't know why it wasn't there, but it wasn't, and I'm like, ninety-nine percent Nick took it. Why did I check the garbage for a stupid Associated Strategies mug anyway?"

Cece wrinkles her nose in disgust. "Wait... Ew. You guys had sex in Schmidt's mug?" 

"Not  _in_ his mug! How do you think I was raised?!"

"You tell me! You have a  _sex mug_ , Jessica."

Jess wrinkles her nose too and says, "I  _know_."

"Look, I'm not too sure why you're digging around in garbage for, well, whatever the hell a 'sex mug' is, but maybe neither of you were as ready to make a 'Clean Break' as you thought you were."

—

THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY

How do you say ' _fiasco_ '? That's what Cece and Schmidt's engagement party is; a complete disaster, and kind of a failure. The guys do a Bollywood dance pretty accurately (not  _well_ , just accurately), and Cece's happy about that for 0.2 seconds until her mom is all, "I don't give you and this thing you call a ' _Schmidt_ ' my blessing!" and  _God_ , a lot just happened in the last half hour of this thing. _  
_

"Jess?"

"Hey, Nick."

 _And we meet again_. Jess laughs to herself when Nick sits down beside her because this is their thing, apparently; hanging out on a toilet in a men's bathroom at formal events. 

"Look, it's not your fault Cece's mom is a total b -"

"Don't call her a 'bitch', Nick. I've known that woman twenty-something years and - Okay, no, she is, she's a bitch."

Nick laughs. "Did you see me Bollywood dance? I'm kind of good, right?"

"To a blind man and Winston, maybe," Jess teases.

"Look, Jess, I know ya'," he says, "and I know you're about to beat yourself up until the day Cece and Schmidt like, have kids, but it's not your fault the party fell apart."

"Yes it is, Nick, that's the thing. I'm the one who invited Cece's mom in the first place."

Nick pats her knee, and then he leaves his hand there for a second. Jess blushes at the gesture.

"If I ever get married, Cece can get her revenge and invite the people who bullied me about being in Madrigal Choir. About - about being the only member of Madrigal Choir, actually, but."

"You're not a bad friend just because one teeny tiny engagement party fell apart," Nick says.

Jess widens her eyes and says, " _Teeny tiny_?! Nick, half of Cece's family flew in from India for this party."

"I know. I spent a strange amount of time with one who I  _thought_ was Cece's mom until Schmidt told me he found real-Cece's-mom. She spent the entire party yelling at me in Hindi."

"You  _what_?!"

"Nothing, forget I said anything, it's nothing, I did nothing."

"Nick, sometimes I'm - I'm worried that all of this planning is all I'm ever gonna have."

He looks confused for a second, and then he just presses his lips together, shakes his head a few times. "I told you this last time we were on a toilet in the men's bathroom together and I'm going to tell you again: You'll get there. You're Jessica Day."

—

JURY DUTY

It's been a weird few months. Jess goes on jury duty for this trial that's being broadcasted on TV - no, seriously, sometimes the gang gets peeks at the corner of their roommates' hair or the rim of her glasses on  _actual_ television.

Anyway. Jess' room is being rented out to Reagan, and Reagan's like... She's not Jess, that's for sure. Reagan's traveled the country, then the world, and she's been with boys and a couple of girls - (Cece included, one time in Los Angeles years back, which is the cause for Schmidt's stress rashes and extra extra paranoia). She tells them all when they fuck up and she's not afraid to hurt anybody's feelings, and when Nick kisses her outside of the bar on the sidewalk one night she  _laughs_ and says, "No, wait, never mind" and pulls away from him and then they never kiss again.

Nick won't tell his roommates this, but he doesn't watch the trial on TV because he likes courtrooms. He doesn't. He misses Jess, a lot, and she's not allowed to talk to any of them because she's sequestered on this jury. 

One day at work Cece asks him, "Wait, do you like Reagan?"

He's sweating. Why is he sweating? He legitimately kind of hates the chick. "No."

"Are you lying?" Cece accusingly points a beer bottle in his direction and grills him.

"Cece, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?"

She hasn't done this since she was what, like, twelve? She sticks out her pinky and tells Nick to lock his with hers. 

"Are you five?"

"No, but I'm serious, do it."

Nick grunts and grabs onto Cece's finger with his. "Fine. I kissed Reagan. Once."

"I knew it. I knew something was going on between you two. You were both acting so weird at brunch the other day. Schmidt was all, 'Eggs?' and you were both all, 'I'm eating in my room!'"

"Cece, when I did that, I - Reagan's everything Jess  _isn't_ , you know."

"I know that,  _duh_."

"No, but like -" He's bad at words. He reaches over the counter and grabs an unopened beer bottle from next to Cece, waits until he takes a chug, and then continues. "Jess is honest, but she's nice about it. Reagan's kind of - Well, she's super  _mean_."

Cece can't even hold in her laugh. 

"And I don't know, we had this moment like, a few months back."

Cece raises an eyebrow. "...Moment?"

"Right after you and Schmidt got engaged, we, - there was this  _mug_ , and I might've - We agreed to throw it out, so we did, and then I, being stupid, decided to dig through the garbage for it, and it wasn't there."

Wait a minute. Cece's all '!!!' and Nick's just looking at her like '???'.

"Do you know something?" he asks.

Cece swallows thickly and picks up an already-clean glass, pretending to polish it. "No. What would I know?"

"Yeah, you're right, you wouldn't. I think you were off climbing a mountain when that whole mess happened."

"Absolutely."

—

NOT JURY DUTY

They get a cake for Jess. No, like, a literal, 'WELCOME BACK FROM JURY DUTY' cake, because it's been  _forever_. Cece and Winston tackle her in hugs at the door, and Schmidt picks her up and swings her around and says, "I hated Reagan  _so_ much! She was the worst!"

"I heard that's just because she called you 'Even-Gayer Nate Berkus', but," Jess says.

Nick's got his hands in his pockets and a half-smile on his face, and he walks right up to Jess after everyone else runs off to the kitchen to get her cake. 

"Hey, Nick." He can tell she's unsure whether or not to hold her hands out for a hug, but a few seconds later she does anyway, and then they're hugging.

Jess pulls him in a little bit closer, and then pulls away. "So, how was it living across the hall from someone other than me for the first time in almost five years?"

He puffs out his cheeks. Has it really been that long? "Um... Hell?" He's honest, and Jess is intrigued, raising both eyebrows at him. "She was kind of the worst. Definitely not as fun to banter with as you are. Remember that one night me and you, we just kind of kept opening our bedroom doors and sticking our tongues out at each other?"

Jess laughs. "Which time? That's literally happened so many times."

He bites his lip and nods, and there's something there, but Cece and Schmidt run into the living room and yell, "JESS! CAKE!" at the same time and then Jess sprints to the kitchen.

—

THE BAR, A RANDOM TUESDAY AFTERNOON

"Man to man, do I talk about Cece's vagina too much?"

Nick sets down a Manhattan for a regular and then scrunches his nose. "I feel like you do, my man."

"I don't know, I'm just... hashtag  _blessed_ , Nicholas," brags Schmidt, and Nick waves a dirty rag at him and goes, "ENOUGH!"

"But in all seriousness, I've never loved anyone the way I love Cece."

"That's good, Schmidt, that's really good, just - You don't need to describe the way she climaxes in detail, man. I hear enough through the walls."

"Did you ever think I'd get married before you?" It's a serious question, and he's asking it kind of seriously, and Nick  _really_ doesn't want to answer. 

"I mean, why not, Schmidt?"

"Because I was kind of a dick."

"You still  _are_ a dick. You're just super nice to Cece because for some odd, unknown reason, she thinks the idea of spending the rest of her life with you is cool." _  
_

Schmidt grins at that. Asshole. "You know," he says, "I thought you and Jess would've gotten married, but then you two broke up and things got weird and now I see you two being those, 'If-we're-still-single-at-forty-five!' people."

"We don't have one of those pacts," Nick says, shaking his head. He's thought about asking her once before, knocking on her room door and just being like, ' _Hey Jessica, so if we're not good enough for anyone else by the time we're forty-five, you're marrying me, okay? I've seen you naked and I'm sure you'll hold up_ just fine _in fifteen years_.'

"Sometimes I feel like you're still in love with her," Schmidt says, and Nick doesn't know whether or not he's serious, or why he's trying to have this conversation  _right now_.

"Order a drink or leave, Schmidt."

"Ha! So you are."

"Shut up, Schmidt. I'm not. I'm just tired of you asking me dumb questions."

"Cece told me about the mug thing, man. Digging through trash like a bunch of Hippie Hoboes for a stupid _sex mug_. True love."

"She told you?!" Nick shakes his head, and his eyes bug out, and he feels kind of betrayed. All over a damn mug. "She pinky swore, man."

"Pinky swears mean nothing when you're someone's fiancé. We kind of tell each other everything. You should hear all the Winston-dirt she knows."

—

THE LOFT, A RANDOM THURSDAY MORNING

Cece: "Wait, why's she watching  _Dirty Dancing_ and crying? No one's broken up with her recently."

Schmidt: "Is she holding my microfiber throw pillow and letting her tears fall all over it? JESS! It's delicate!"

Winston: "Those aren't tears, man, that's straight up  _snot_."

Schmidt: "Snot?! Let me die. Right here."

Nick walks out of his room mid-yawn, hands in the pockets of his plaid pajama pants, drool on the side of his mouth that he swipes at with the sleeve of his Henley. "Hey friends. Do I hear crying?"

Cece and Schmidt and Winston all whisper, "It's Jess" and then point to the couch, where sure enough, Jess is sobbing and singing along to 'She's Like the Wind'.

"I'll deal with this," Nick says, and everyone kind of backs away and runs into the kitchen because Winston's making eggs and they sure as hell don't want to deal with a sobbing,  _Dirty Dancing_ watching Jessica Day at nine in the morning. 

Nick sits down a few feet from Jess and reaches out to grab the pillow out of her lap. "You okay, Jess?"

"Am I  _okay_?" She dramatically turns her head toward Nick and then grabs the remote off of the coffee table, pausing right in the middle of the song. "Actually, yeah, I'm fine now that I realize I'm being -" She pauses to sniffle. "Sorry. I'm fine now that I realize I'm being  _ridiculous_."

"What do you mean?"

"I was up all night making the seating cards for Cece and Schmidt's wedding and then I was like, ' _What if this is the last time I'll ever get to make seating cards?_ ' because I'm starting to think I'm un-marriable."

"Is that - I get why you're upset but is that - Is that a word? 'Marriable'?"

"What do you care? You pronounced 'karaoke' like 'Kah-roo-key-key' at Karaoke Night last Friday. You don't get to question me."

She sniffles again and Nick grabs the box of tissues off of the coffee table, holding it out to her.

"Thank you," she says, all stuffy. 

"Look," he starts, and he turns around to the kitchen to make sure his roommates aren't listening. "You're  _Jessica Day_. You're worth - you're worth falling in love with, okay? You're  _marriable_ , Jess, you are - even though that is  _definitely_ not a word."

"And 'Kah-roo-key-key' is?!"

"Okay, no, you're missin' my point here," he says, head shaking.

"I think I got it, Nick. Thank you."

—

CECE'S BACHELORETTE PARTY/SCHMIDT'S BACHELOR PARTY/ONE BIG MESS

"Okay, maybe 'Pin the Dong on Shivrang' didn't work because he was kind of creepy and apparently didn't have a penis, but Schmidt definitely does -"

"I see Jew pee-pee," Nadia interrupts, clapping her hands together.

" _Right_ ," Jess continues, holding a five-foot-eleven cardboard Schmidt, "but Schmidt definitely does, and you  _definitely_ know where it goes, unless those noises you make in our loft every night are just you two playing really sexual board games."

Jess and Nadia both blindfold Cece and spin her around a few times, and then they lead her to five-foot-eleven cardboard Schmidt and she pins the dong  _right_ where the dong goes and all of the girls in the room are kind of like, half-impressed, half-not surprised.

Cece rips the blindfold off of herself and smirks at her own accuracy. "I'm good."

In the middle of 'Pin the Dong on Schmidt', Schmidt himself busts through the door with Nick and Winston behind him.

"We need to have my bachelor party here!" he exclaims, and all of the girls kind of scream, "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" at he and the guys.

"The Velvet Rabbit is being fumigated or something and we can't have it at the bar because Mike's gonna be all, 'You can call out of work but you can throw a bachelor party in my bar!' and I'm too sensitive to get yelled at tonight," Nick explains, hoping Cece and the girls will be sympathetic.

"I have to share the rest of my life with you," Cece says, pointing to Schmidt, who's looking up and down like, ' _Who? Me?_ '. "I'm not sharing my bachelorette party with you too. Get out!"

"We'll stay in my room," Schmidt pleas.

"Your room? You and two other guys are going to have a bachelor party alone in your bedroom?"

"I mean, I was kind of hoping you'd let us use one half of the living room, but..."

Jess raises a hand, and Schmidt says, "You don't have to raise your hand every time you want to speak, Jess. We've been telling you this for five years."

"Fine, but why don't we share?"

Cece whines. "No. Jess! This is my night. You said so."

"I  _might_ have an idea..."

With a little coaxing, a bunch of people are scrambling around the living room playing a wild round of True American - Bachelor/ette Style! (Jess penned it). 

"WEDDING CAKE!"

"THREE WHITE DOVES!"

"I DO! I DO! I DO!"

Winston drinks the least of the group and has to kiss Nadia, and Sadie has to peck Jess on the mouth two rounds in, and then before everyone knows it it's two in the morning and Cece and Schmidt and Jess and Nick are all kind of in this weird circle-square and the rest of their guests are either: A. Knocked out on the living room floor hugging a bottle of Gin - (ahem, Winston) or B. Home, preparing for the inevitable hangover they'll have to nurse tomorrow morning.

"Let's spice this up a little bit," Schmidt says, wiggling his eyebrows.

How 'spiced up' can a game of True American get? It's two in the morning and Cece has cake in her hair, Jess has her top off, Nick is wearing a bra over his t-shirt, and Schmidt is wearing a sash that says, 'BRIDE TO BE' and a pair of briefs. 

Cece yawns and falls onto Schmidt's shoulder. He cringes because he's pretty sure she just got cake all over him. "No, let's  _not_ spice it up," she says, "let's go to bed."

"I think we should kiss," Schmidt says, and Cece, with a yawn, just says, "We kiss all the time, dude. Bring me to bed."

"Not  _us_ ," he says, " _them_."

"Us?!" Nick's pointing at himself, then at Jess, and then their eyes kind of meet and they both start to frantically shake their heads. 

"Bad idea!"

"Absolutely."

"Bad,  _bad_ idea!"

"Do it or you both suck," says Schmidt.

Cece's awake now, and she's laughing. "Yeah, do it or you both suck."

"But the game is over, it's -" Nick's trying to argue his way out of this one, and his friends clearly find it  _so_ amusing. "Okay, no, this is stupid, we're not even playing anymore!"

"I agree," says Jess, holding up both hands in defense. "Game's over."

"Game's just beginning, my horny little friends," Schmidt says, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Ew. Please never say that again, babe," says Cece, pretending to dry heave.

"Fine, you know what, pretend you two aren't  _totally_ aroused at the idea of sucking face! I'm giving you guys a perfectly good excuse to do it! I'm saying it's part of the game! Joke's on you! The game ended hours ago!"

Nick says, "That's what I've been trying to tell you, man."

Jess says, "Yeah, that's what he's been trying to tell you,  _man_ " mockingly.

Cece stands up tiredly and waves for Schmidt to do the same. "Bed. Now.  _Pleaseee_. I shared my bachelorette party with you."

Schmidt obliges, but not before narrowing his eyes at Jess and then Nick, murmuring, "I'm watching you two" under his breath.

Nick stands up and unclasps the bra he's got on over his t-shirt, laughing at the ridiculousness of the night as he does so.

"Schmidt is Grade-A, 'I Slept In My Mom's Bed Until I Was 12' Crazy, you know that, right?"

"Jess, he actually  _did_ sleep in his mom's bed until he was twelve," Nick says. "But yeah. He is."

Nick's silently cleaning up as much of the living room floor as he can clean up, picking up beer can after beer can after beer can after - Okay, he's just going to leave Winston there until the morning, fuck it.

As he's doing that, Jess is in the kitchen tidying up, ripping streamers off of the cabinets and untying balloons from drawer pulls. 

Nick walks over to the kitchen and does a little wave. "'Night, Jess."

She pulls down one last streamer and says, "Yeah, goodnight."

—

THE DAY AFTER CECE'S BACHELORETTE PARTY/SCHMIDT'S BACHELOR PARTY/ONE BIG MESS

"Coming, coming!"

Who  _knocks_? Apartment 4D has one unspoken rule, and that is: We're thirty-something, we need our privacy sometimes, but none of our bedroom doors have locks either, so never knock, just barge right in. Seriously. Do it.

Jess throws her pink robe on over her pajama shorts and her bra and swings the door open, then laughs when she sees it's Nick. "I don't know who I expected," she says. She's (kind of) lying.

"I just -" He pauses and walks into her bedroom, shutting the door behind him slowly. "I'm sorry I didn't kiss ya' last night Jess, I really am, but I didn't want to do it for the sake of a stupid game."

"Or at all, you could've just said ' _at all_ '."

"No, see, okay, that's the thing, I -" His hands are pocketed, and he clears his throat, taking two steps up toward where Jess is standing. "I don't want you to think you're not good enough to kiss, Jess."

"Nick, what are you even saying?"

Jess is getting frustrated, and Nick is getting flustered, and it takes him a second to open his mouth, but when he does, nothing comes out. Instead, he pulls his hands from his pockets and just grabs onto her wrist, tugging her forward.

"W-What - What are you -"

It's been awhile; it's been forever since they've been this close to each other's faces. His breath still smells like Gin and crappy beer from the night before, and hers probably smells about the same. He wordlessly brings a hand up to cup the side of her face, and lets his other hand pull her in by the waist. Jess' hands are at her side for a good five seconds before she knows what to do with them. His lips crash onto hers so fiercely, so quickly, and it's like - Okay, it's like one of those movies, where you're like, 'KISS, KISS, KISS!' to the protagonist and her potential-beau every time they're in the same proximity, and you're waiting the whole movie for them to finally  _do it_ , and when they do, it's so good you just kind of go, 'YES!' from your seat and get all excited that these two people are like, sucking face. 

"Nick..."

He pulls away, but only for a second, and then he kisses her again, this time letting his mouth linger on her upper lip.

"You're way more than good enough to kiss," he says, and then he, in Classic Nick Miller Fashion, just kind of walks out of her bedroom and leaves her there all flustered and overly-kissed.


End file.
